2017

What have you heard about the application process? Just curious!

Unfortunately, I don't know of anyone in the department who has been admitted without being interviewed, so I wouldn't keep my hopes up...Current grad student here.

I applied to programs for Fall 2017 and was accepted to McGill (although i won't be attending). McGill doesn't have any applied linguists, and there is only one sociolinguist. He's a dialectologist, so if you're interested in interactional linguistics and computer-mediated communication, it wouldn't be a good fit. You might look at Georgetown, if the aforementioned fields are of interest to you. However, it's a bit unclear to me what your research interests actually are as your statement of "how humans interact with language" is quite vague.

I was waitlisted at my top choice. I have a few backups but I'm not excited about any of them. I know at least one person accepted to this school has not made a decision yet, so I'm assuming they are waiting on him. My question is: when you've had all of your decisions and visits completed over a month ago (which is the case in his situation), what is taking you so long to make a decision?????

At least for Georgetown, this means you're in!

So I was wait listed at my top program in the beginning of March. I was told that my chances of being offered a spot off the waitlist are "very good", and that while I couldn't be told my exact ranking on the list, it is "very, very, very high". I've been in contact with many of the people who were accepted to this program, and one of them just recently turned down an offer and informed the program a few days ago. Knowing that I'm high on the waitlist and that April 15 is quickly approaching, I contacted my POI and asked if there might be any update with regards to my application status. He just responded, saying that they "are not yet at a point where [they] can move to the waitlist" and that the waitlist is "a frustratingly complicated process, the details of which I’ll spare you". He then went on to say that it's still very possible that they will move to the waitlist and that they are "hoping and trying to get to it". His evaluation of the waitlist process as being a "frustratingly complicated process" and that the department is "trying to get to [the waitlist]" is making me wonder if there is some kind of university-wide blockade in the place that the department has to maneuver around before the graduate school allows them accept and fund waitlisted applicants. Does anybody have any idea if this is common or even a thing? I suppose it's also possible that more than one person needs to decline an offer before the department can move to the waitlist, although my sense is that this is less likely to be the case, as the department accepts 7 students and hopes to enroll 7. So, for every declined spot, there should be a waitlist acceptance. I'm sure waitlist processes differ vastly from school to school, but does anyone have any potential insight on this?

What I can say is that sociolinguistics is one of the most competitive subfields in linguistics to get into nowadays (I was told this by several faculty). As you may have noticed, nearly ALL linguistics programs will have syntax and semantics faculty. And several at that. Only about half or a third of these departments have 1 socio faculty member. The best socio departments have at most 3 socio faculty. This means that applicants who are interested in socio all apply to the same few programs. This, taken together with the fact that departments receive more applications for sociolinguistics specializations than for any other specialization, makes admissions very difficult. That being said, there are several very good and funded MA programs with great socio faculty. NC State is one in the US, and many top linguistics programs in Canada have at least one socio faculty member and these all offer funding at the MA level, e.g., Toronto, McGill, York U, Ottawa. I believe there are several less prestigious PhD programs that have at least one socio faculty member, but I don't know if it would be advisable to attend there with the intention of dropping out after getting an MA. Although maybe other people would have different opinions about this. Feel free to PM if you want to talk more! I applied for socio PhD programs for fall 2017.

Do people usually wait until April 15 to accept and decline offers? I was waitlisted at my top choice and was told I have a good chance of being admitted, but I'm not sure when I might hear.

the open house is Feb. 24 but last year it seems they accepted people after the open house even.

Yeah, I'm curious about the funding! I can't make it to the open house, but I'm trying to schedule another day to visit and plan to ask them while I'm there what the situation is.

I got one of them on February 1st and was told that I'd hear about the funding decision in March. I'm not sure how they do admissions because they don't seem to send out decisions all at once.

Thanks for sharing! If it makes you feel better, the school I wrote this post about ended up rejecting me from the PhD, but liked my application enough to fully fund me for an MA. When I asked if I wasn't accepted for the PhD because of a poor interview, the department responded by saying that they felt my interview was very strong, and that I only wasn't accepted because this year's applicants were "unusually" strong. The program is a top one, so I don't think they would have offered a funded MA if I sounded like a total idiot, which I thought I did. So don't lose hope! We are often our harshest critics.

Can anybody claim any of the Chicago acceptances?

I was in the same situation last week. I emailed the interviewer with clarification for one of my answers and she never replied to me, so I'm not sure if it was inappropriate or not. I'm guessing it probably depends on the interviewer. You might want to write clarifying why you want to attend and not about your interests so it doesn't seem that you are trying re-do the whole interview. Draft it so that it comes across as thoughtful and reflective and not panicky.

One of those was mine, and I just noticed that I too spelled university wrong! lol. But in the past it seems not all invites were sent at the same time, so don't lose hope yet!